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World’s Student Christian Federation. 
European Student Relief Series No. 7. 


SIX DAYS A WEEK 
IN VIENNA. 


PROLOGUE. 


Place. Offices of the Federation Student Relief in Vienna University. 


.Time. 9-30 am. Any Week-day. Summer Term, 1920. 


A long queue of men and women students stands patiently outside 
a closed door, on which appears a notice stating that personal applica- 
tions for a daily breakfast, costing 50 hellers (4d. in English money), 
would be received on that and ensuing days, and requesting that each 
applicant should bring certain State and University papers, relating to 
birth, income, family conditions and so forth. 


From the humanitarian or analytical standpoint it is an interesting 
gathering, representative of over twenty States, of many creeds and of 
all classes. One common factor brings them together, obliterating for 
the time all differences of temperament, thought, religion and race— 
that factor, misery and need. White faces, darkly-lined eyes, thin 
bodies, nervous gestures or apathetic indifference; some lean weakly 
against the wall; others, with damp foreheads, stand grimly upright; 
many are wearing battered military uniforms, others, much-pressed and 
mended pre-war civilian clothes; all these signs are significant of the 
Spectre which haunts Austria and other Central European countries. 


SCENE I. 


Ten o’clock strikes, and the door opens to receive the first four 
applicants, each of whom finds himself at one side of a small table, faced 
by a Relief Worker, by whom he is engaged in rapid dialogue :— 


Relief Worker (reading quickly through the document handed to 
him)—‘‘ Do you live with your parents?’’ Student—‘‘ I live with my 
mother. My father was a General and was killed in the War.’’ R.W.— 
‘“ Then this figure represents your mother’s yearly pension? ’’ (probably 
about 8,000 crowns—£,8 in English money). St.—‘‘ Yes. I give a few 
lessons, and my sister does needlework for a shop, and we live as best 
we can.’?’ R.W. (making notes)—‘‘ Where do you have your meals? ’’ 
St.—‘‘I have dinner in the University Mensa and supper at home.’’ 
R.W.—‘‘ And breakfast? ’’ St. (embarrassed)—‘‘ I sometimes have a 
cup of black coffee, but our bread ration is so small that we cannot save 
any for the third meal.’? R.W.—‘‘ When will you get your degree? ”’ 
St.—‘‘ Next autumn, I hope.’”’? R.W.—‘‘ A list of the names chosen for 


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the Breakfast will be put up in the Aula on Friday. See if your name 
is on it.’? With swift thanks the man leaves, and is immediately 
replaced at the table by a woman student. 


St.—‘‘ My father is a watchmaker, and I have six brothers and 
sisters, two of them earning a little; the two youngest are tubercular. 
Our home was devastated in 1915, when the Russians advanced into 
Poland, and we fled to Vienna.’’ R.W.—‘‘ Do you try to earn any- 
thing?’’ St.—‘‘ I give lessons, but pupils are hard to find.’’ R.W.— 
“‘ What faculty?’’ St.—‘‘ Letters and philosophy.’’ R.W.—‘‘ What 
will you do when you have finished your course?’’ St.—‘‘ I mean to 
20 back to Poland and be a teacher, so that my parents can take the 
children back to the country.’ 


The next applicant is a mere boy, unmistakably tubercular. His 
coat is closely buttoned and the collar turned up to his ears, the reason 
being that he has no shirt. 


R.W.-—‘* Tell me a little about yourself.’’ St.—‘‘ My parents live 
in a small town, where my father is a bank clerk. I have two little 
sisters. I was a student in Vienna before the War, and, when demobil- 
ised, I came back to finish my medical course. I share a kabinetta 
(garret) with another student.’? R.W.—‘‘ What do you live upon? ”’ 
St.—‘‘ I keep myself by working in a restaurant kitchen from 6 till 11 
each evening, and I have a small disablement pension from the Army of 
100 crowns per month.’’ R.W.—‘‘ Would you go and see our doctor if 
{1 gave youacard?’’ St.—‘‘ Yes, but I have an “Army certificate stating 
that I am 60% unfit, suffering from tuberculosis in both lungs, due to 
exposure in the Pripet Marshes.’’ R.W. (writing a card)—‘‘ See this 
doctor, and bring me back his report as soon as you can.”’ 


So it goes on, case after case, varying only slightly, and the need of 
one differing but the shade of a degree from the need of another. Few 
applicants have the 500 crowns per month, the estimated minimum 
required for the barest necessities of life; therefore few have escaped 
the dangers of under-nourishment and partial starvation. 


SCENE II. 
Place. Main Hall of the University. 


Representative Committees have already been formed from amongst 
the University students to help the relief workers through all the pitfalls 
and intricacies of administering the Breakfast and other Relief Schemes. 
These Committees are as fully representative as possible of all sec- 
tions in the University, faculties, religions, political parties and’ races, 
thus guarding against any appearance of partiality. 


After careful consideration and heartbreaking eliminations by the 
relief workers and the Student Committees, the list of nominations is 
posted up in the main Hall of the University, and breakfast cards are 
issued, good for 30 days, to be renewed if wisely used and well allocated. 


The list contains about 1,200 names, and is the centre of anxious 
crowds for several days. Pleasure and excitement lights the eyes 
of the successful candidate.. Sadness and resignation darkens the 
face of the one whose name is not included... In many cases the Office 
is the scene of recriminations or of woeful pleadings; the most difficult 
part of the relief worker’s task is to explain that choice has been founded 
on careful investigation, and that there are only supplies enough for the 
most urgent cases of need. 


SCENE Ill. 


Place. A Buffet, looking on to the University Quadrangle. 
Time. Any morning between 7-30 and 9-30. 


The Buffet is well filled with men and women students, sitting in 
groups of three or four round small white tables, talking, and sometimes 
laughing, but real laughter is rarely heard in Vienna nowadays. <A 
fierce-looking youth, with hair en brosse, sits just inside the door, punch- 
ing breakfast tickets and collecting 50 hellers each from the incomers, 
before these proceed to the counter where two women medical students 
preside over cups of rich cocoa and large slices of white bread. A big 
notice on the wail tactfully announces that the breakfasts are provided 
by fellow-students from all over the world for the students of Vienna 
University as a token of sympathy and unity. 


The room contains as heterogeneous a crowd as could be found 
anywhere—Austrians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slavs, Serbs, Bul- 
gars, Turks, Christians, Jews, Agnostics, Bolshevists, Monarchists, 
Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists. Physical need prompts them to 
apply for this daily sustenance, and for some of them. it is not easy to 
beg charity, but in a paralysed country there is so little opening for self- 
supporting work. In practice, this Relief Scheme, administered by the 
representatives of fellow-students of other lands, awakens in them a feel- 
ing that they are in the midst of some Utopia, where prejudice and party 
differences have no place, and where kindliness and cheer are the order 
of the hour. . 


And so the breakfast period slips by, students coming and going, 
some eating hastily with eyes on the clock, others, forgetful of lectures, 
sitting on in conversation and enjoyment. 


EPILOGUE. 


: Extract from an Austrian woman student’s letter. 
DEAR GNAEDIGE FRAU, 


I am writing this note to you during an Anatomy lecture, because 
I must tell you that this is the first morning that I have been at the break- 
fasts, and it is also the first morning for over a year that I have not felt 
ill and faint by twelve o’clock. .I wish that I could write and thank all 
the students of other countries who have contributed to help me and my 
friends in the University. They will never know how grateful . 
aa here followed more thanks than the modesty of other nations can 
ace). , : 


To-Morrow Morning at Breakfast 
Try to Forget 


that 


THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS HAVE 
BEEN REFUSED THIS BREAKFAST 


by. our Relief Committee in Austria alone for lack of 
funds. We could open similar work urgently demanded 
in other lands, to-morrow, if we had the money. 


The cost price of each breakfast is THREEPENCE. 
£1 will provide a student with breakfast for THREE MONTHS. 


To supply even this scanty breakfast of cocoa and 
bread to 5,000 students in Austria as we are now doing, 
we require half a ton of flour alone daily. If the scheme 
is to be carried on throughout the academic year, there 
ate | 

WANTED, 
150 tons of flour, 
2,680 cases of Condensed Milk. 
15 tons of Cocoa. 


All money raised for this purpose should be sent to 
our Treasurer, 


M. Louis Hess, 13, Avenue de Champel, Geneva, Switzerland. 
November, 1920. 


WORLD’S STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION 
EUROPEAN STUDENT RELIEF. 


JOHN R. MOTT, CONRAD HOFFMANN, RUTH ROUSE, 
Chairman, Executive Secretary, Publicity Secretary, 
347, Madison Avenue, 13, Avenue de Champel, 28, Lancaster Road, 


New York City. Geneva, witzerlar Wimbledon, London, S.W. 19. 


